Sebastian Vettel said Red Bull got his strategy spot on to allow him to get on the podium at the British Grand Prix.

Vettel started fourth but dropped to fifth behind Felipe Massa at the start before making an early stop to switch from softs to hards. The hard tyres proved quick in clear air and that allowed the Red Bull to emerge from the first round of pit stops ahead of Massa and Michael Schumacher, who had been third.

"It was an interesting one," he said. "The start was not so good, I lost a little bit and lost a position to Felipe and then had a tough fight with him at the beginning. I nearly got past, but it was really, really close, which was fun but I didn't get past. We then got on the right strategy to come back and that turned out to be the right thing because at the end we had a little bit left in our tyres.

Vettel is now 29 points behind Fernando Alonso in the championship and 16 points behind Mark Webber, but said his Red Bull team-mate deserved his victory.

"All in all I'm very happy and Mark deserved to win today and I'm very happy for the result and the team."